The Other Side
by Dani the Writer
Summary: Rose Tyler is dumped, again, for her own good, again, and in for a rocky adjustment, again. As she reorients herself to her original universe and tries to rebuild a long-ago relationship with the much older Doctor, will she come to terms with the loss of Pete's World or has her original universe become The Other Side?
1. Chapter 1

"Rose! Rose, it's no good! Go and hit the third green button from the right!" the Doctor yelled over the sounds of their impending explosion. He tapped two wires together, flinching away from the sparks it created, until the cloister bell finally quit clanging at them. "That's better!" he piped with a manic smile, before they both lurched to the ground as the ship threw them sideways."Rose?"

"I've got it!" she hollered, pulling herself back to her feet. A small drawer flew open beside her when she pushed the button (which was actually the third from the left), revealing a slim, metallic wrist brace. She picked it up, turning it over in her hands. "Doctor?"

He was at the storage bay which housed their baby TARDIS, all hooked up to their space craft, basking under a sun lamp, doing what she could to give them as much Space as she could manage, for the time being. Rose watched him step away and something about his demeanor frightened her.

It passed too quickly for her to say anything and he was flying to the controls of the alien ship, punching in commands, shoulder to shoulder with Rose – it really was a very small ship. "Rose, put it on. Is it on? Now type in one, two, zero, five, one, double nine, six." He looked at her, looked back to his controls, then he did a double take and let out a frustrated sigh. "Rose, you have to open up the interface panel!" He reached across to grab her hand, laughing when she said, "Well, it's not like there was any button said 'open here!'" before he tapped a panel open. In her defense, the design was practically seamless, he noted, proud of his own handiwork. His fingers flew over the now-exposed number pad, typing the code in. "There we are! Come on, quickly!"

Still holding her hand, he propelled them both towards the back of the ship, bursting at the seams with the desperate need to stay ahead of what was coming. Rose, ever attuned, caught his frantic energy and offered an uncertain smile. He flashed her his most brilliant grin. "Fancy a space jump!?" he laughed, grabbing hold of her head to yank her closer. He smashed his lips against her forehead in a loud, smacking kiss, and he hugged her, probably too tightly but he only had a very little bit of time, if this was to work. When she wrapped her arms around him, he listened to the whir of the wrist brace, nearly ready, and pulled away. His smile held. "Wait here," he told her. "I'll just grab the TARDIS."

He only moved after she'd nodded her agreement and had taken hold of one of the emergency handles hanging from the low ceiling of their little space craft. Then he ran. He ran to the storage panel, where the dying, baby TARDIS valiantly fought to hold them together just a little longer.

He looked back at Rose and saw the questions in her eyes. Sharp was his Rose; she knew too well when he was about to get up to something. He moved past the storage room, ignored Rose's question, and yanked out the lever to release the hangar doors. He heard Rose shout but he pulled it down – there wasn't time for an explanation. The doors opened and both passengers grabbed hold of anything they could to keep from being pulled outside. The wrist brace chimed, cheery in spite of the goings-on; charge complete. "Emergency protocol: EXEMPLAR," he shouted, and the wrist brace chimed again, whirring as it engaged the program.

"You can shove your emergency protocols!" Rose was shouting, and he smiled at her, his heart falling to pieces. "No! Not again! I won't do this again!"

"I'm sorry," he said, too softly to reach her, as he freed one hand to pull out his sonic. He aimed it at the handle she was gripping, white knuckled. She screamed protests. "It's alright!" he shouted, above the roar of the open doors and engines and the space ship behind them, much too close and still firing at them, but slowly – so very, very slow, thanks to the TARDIS's interference. "He'll catch you!" His sonic whirred. The handle released and she was yanked out the back of the hangar. In a flash of light, she was gone.

The Doctor shoved the lever back up, and in, and the hangar doors closed. He held on a moment longer and put the world right-side up as best he could, forcing too-recent memories back, and stemming the rise of panic. When he trusted his legs again, he moved into the TARDIS' storage room, slipped inside with the still growing coral, and closed the door behind him. "I only see one, good way out of this one, darling. Well, I say 'good' ..." He laid a hand on the rough surface. "I'm so sorry. I need you to do just one more thing. Can you do that for me?" He fiddled with the settings on his sonic, scanning the would-have-been ship. "'Course you can," he gushed. "You're brilliant, you are. A message. Just one, short message, a straight shot through to the other TARDIS, just follow the bouncing Rose" he narrated while he sonicked the coral, fussed with the wiring, and he soon found a newly formed button for his troubles. The lights inside the tiny chamber flickered. "There we are!"

He pressed the button and held it in. "Now you need to listen to me, and don't mess up! I'm not at all who you think I am!" He ducked, instinctively, as something overhead crashed, another piece of the ship flying away into the unknown. He raised an arm to block a shot of sparks from burning his face. His sonic caught the worst of it, and sparked itself. "Well," he began, cringing when the sonic popped. Wait! Not who he was thinking? Hadn't he spent the last four years convincing himself and Rose that that was exactly who he was!? Doctor the tenth! And- He shook his head. Never mind, now. It didn't matter, anymore. "No. No time for particulars. Short version, I'm your fighting hand, and you need to catch Rose." He swallowed, listening to the enemy ship picking up speed. Of course. The TARDIS wouldn't be able to hold a temporal anomaly /and/ relay a cross-dimensional recording; not in her current state. "Do not miss. Do not be late. Do not stand there lecturing at me – I'm only a recording and it's already done." God help him, he'd already done it, consequences be damned, and he hoped with all his heart that his counterpart would still be the kind of man who would drop anything for Rose. Why wouldn't he be? Oh, all sorts of reasons, if you thought about it. He refused to. Never mind! Keep it short!

"The coordinates are on screen." He tried to sonic the TARDIS. Nothing happened. He hit the screwdriver on the heel of his palm. "They should be." He shook it and tried again. Nothing. He threw it to the floor and laid both hands on the small coral, pressing his forehead hard against the rough surface, willing the coordinates through. "I hope they are," he said, and didn't notice the break in his voice.

"I've sent her through as best I can, but you'll need to work out the rest. It's a-" How to describe the bracelet, quickly, without detail? "well, it's a Void, Vortex…" He waved his hand in the air, frustrated, until an image ofJack's device popped into his head. "Manipulator!" What, then? "Voidtex…" Vorpoid? Vex? The ship lurched, and he was tossed against the wall. "Never mind!" Naming the thing was the least of his concerns, just a distraction! "But it wasn't finished and she doesn't have a capsule, so go!" Time travel without a capsule, never mind VOID travel – Don't think about it. "Now…" He should tell the Doctor so much more! Tell him why he was sending her! Tell him not to send her back! Tell him to take CARE of her, the way he should have done from the start, damn him and all his Time Lord angst, but the engines of his space ship guttered, and the TARDIS was fading. "I haven't got-" He scoffed at the irony of the situation. Bitter. Frightened. "I haven't got time…"

That was it. The TARDIS finished the broadcast (he hoped) and he yanked his hand away from it. She was gone. There was nothing, nothing left but empty coral. He lurched to his feet, desperate to get out the room.

He didn't leave himself time to think about what he was about to do. He just stumbled to the control panel of the space ship and started pressing buttons, not quite at random. The ship behind him was coming on fast, now, already opening a gaping maw to swallow the Doctor's tiny-in-comparison ship. He wouldn't allow those monsters access to a TARDIS: even a dead one could jumpstart a science program. And he certainly couldn't allow them access to a Time Lord, even one that wasn't quite. And he would not, under any circumstances, for any reason, allow them the chance to continue their pursuit of Rose Tyler.

He stressed his engines to the point of overloading and then he ejected them. Of course the pilots in the other ship caught on and they tried to avoid it, but they wouldn't be able to. They were done for, exactly as he'd planned. The ensuing explosion was massive, and the Doctor sank into the pilot seat, bemoaning the primitive sciences of lesser species – if he'd had his own TARDIS, this never would have happened. As it was, the saving grace was that his own, superior intellect and foresight had got Rose to safety. He closed his eyes. Of course he'd done that much. And of course the other Doctor would catch her. It was always about Rose, he thought, secure in the truth of that.

Then the explosion swallowed his ship, too.

* * *

Somewhen in the universe, a light on the Doctor's TARDIS appeared. Just a tiny little button that blinked away, off and on, for weeks, until the Doctor thought to tend to it. It would need a signal boost and more than a little coaxing, but the message would eventually come through, along with the coordinates.

The strained voice of his tenth incarnation blasted into being. "Now you need to listen to me, and don't mess up!

"I'm not at all who you think I am!" he went on, and in the background, there were obvious signs of distress. Sparking and pops, nearing an explosion.

"Well," he drawled, but he caught himself (miraculously). "No. No time for particulars. Short version, I'm your fighting hand, and you need to catch Rose. Do not miss. Do not be late. Do not stand there lecturing at me - I'm only a recording and it's already done.

"Coordinates are on screen. They should be. I hope they are," he said, a dark note of concern choking his voice. "I've sent her through as best I can, but you'll need to work out the rest. It's a - well, it's a Void/Vortex manipulator. Voidtex- never mind. But it wasn't finished and she doesn't have a capsule, so go. Now. I haven't got -" He laughed, as something else burst, in the background. "I haven't got /time./"

The message cut.

* * *

Author's note: Hello! First fanfic up! No need to be gentle, but no outright flames, please. I really would appreciate reviews. I don't have a beta. I don't know how to get one, but if anyone would like to apply, please be fabulously motivational and willing to prod. Thanks so much and I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Doctor Who.


	2. Chapter 2

"HA!"

The triumphant cry broke the silence inside the TARDIS. No one else was there to notice. "I told you I could do it!" the Doctor declared, glancing over first one shoulder, then the other, frowning at the empty spaces; both of them. "Oh." He looked at the Time Rotor, instead, giving her a wink. "I knew that," he said, flashing a smooth grin, playing it cool. He looked down to the tiny wire in his hand and added, "I did," very softly, petulant.

The Doctor was alone.

He was sitting in a chair in the control room, hunched over his work. Though now he was simply wrapping the end of a wire around a little piece of metal, the disaster around him spoke of a far more arduous day; days, in fact; many of them. It's not every day his TARDIS grew a new button!

He thought, perhaps, that she was upset with him for not noticing it sooner. He'd pressed the button almost a month ago; he couldn't say how long it had been there before he noticed it, but he pressed it as soon as he did. It had sparked a bit, and that had been exciting. It started blinking, after that. Something was stuck, still loading, or downloading, or uploading, or something. It was definitely doing something, he was sure. It was certainly taking its time, and far too much of his. After three weeks of waiting, the Doctor had decided to help it along. Just a bit.

He leapt out of his chair with a grin and stepped blithely around strewn tools and cords and panel pieces, two jackets, and only he could say what else. He followed the wire back in, disentangling it where necessary, collecting it like a kite string. "Now we'll see what you are!" he told it, a sing-song promise, shoving the handful of twined wire into the console. He was more careful with the panel as he fed the wire through and put the console back together.

Then the Doctor paused. He stood up and checked the chair. "Maybe," he amended, holding one hand up in a placating gesture. He turned around, twice, on the spot. Where had he put it? "Button." He walked around the console. "Button, button, button. Who," he drawled, thoughtfully, "has the button?" Now, stop, you stuck it somewhere so you wouldn't lose it; somewhere safe; somewhere obvious, so couldn't possibly forget. Where?

He lifted his hands to his forehead, scrubbing his face in his frustration, and he dislodged the button case from his pinky finger. "Oops!" He did manage to catch it after a brief hacky-sack dance and he straightened up, quickly, with a sharp glance around.

No. Of course no one had seen that.

He straightened his bow tie anyway. Habit.

"Right! Got it!" he enthused, snapping it into place over the wire and metal. "Little, red button, never saw it before, with very strange readings. What are you good for, if you don't do anything but blink?" he asked it, his tone curt, and he carefully picked his way back to the console. "There." After he fed the wire through, he popped the button back into place, ran his sonic over the panel and stepped away to admire his handiwork, arms akimbo. He stumbled over a sledgehammer.

He did take a moment to cast a dirty look at the offending piece of equipment, brushing imaginary wrinkles from his waistcoat, but not a long one. "I've been wondering about you for days, now," he carried on, pacing in front of the button. "Not blinking anymore, are you?" he cooed. The Doctor gave it another scan with his sonic before crouching down in front of it. His nose brushed against the dash of the console. He held the sonic up so he could check the readings.

His smile unfolded slowly and his attention slipped back to the mystery button. "Are you ready?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He launched himself up, slammed the button down and spun around with his arms in the air, victorious! "What did I tell you?" he crowed as the message – What message? "Who is that?" he demanded, startled.

The Doctor jerked around as, indeed, a voice struggled to come into focus. He flashed his sonic, once, twice, until he could get a fix on the frequency. Then, it was a small miracle he didn't drop it! _"…Listen to me,"_ his previous regeneration was saying in his serious voice.

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor begged, gawking.

"_And don't mess up!"_

"Oi!"

"_I'm not at all who you think I am,"_ the voice went on, and the Doctor loomed over the console panel, listening to, and trying to place, the sounds in the background. He didn't remember this.

"_Weeell,"_ the voice drawled, and the Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, get to it!" he snapped, pacing away from the button.

_"No,"_ the voice surprised him by saying, cutting off his own prattle. _"No time for particulars._

"_I'm your fighting hand…"_

"Ooo!" The Doctor giggled, hands up, his right hand fingers wiggling with excitement. "Metacrisis me! Oh! That explains all the explody noises! Always did like to listen to yourself talk. Hang on! Only you would stop to leave a message!"

_"…Rose."_

The Doctor spun around so quickly his coattails flared and he shot the button with his sonic. The message backtracked. The sonic went quiet and the message resumed playing.

"…_particulars. Short version, I'm your fighting hand, and you need to catch Rose!"_

"You want me to what?! Catch her?" He spat out the words like sour grapes. "What do you mean, 'Catch Rose'? Unless-"

"_Do not miss."_

"No, no, no! Stop!" The Doctor cried, storming over to the button. He waved his hand over it, as if to dismiss the message content. "You wouldn't dare!"

"_Do not be late."_

"I've just finished fixing the mess you made last time!" he cried, pointing towards the doors of the TARDIS, well, the mess from last time. "Do you know-"

"_Do not stand there lecturing at me – I'm only a recording…"_

The Doctor shut up, crossed his arms, and turned away. He pulled a face as he slanted his gaze down to the button. "I know you are," he insisted, peevishly, talking over the insistent voice of his predecessor. Already done! How stupid!

"_Coordinates are on screen."_

"What? Mine? My screen?" The Doctor stumbled around his rubbish, grabbing onto the monitor as much to catch himself as to look at it, his eyes jumping between black screen and red button.

_"They should be."_

"What do you mean? Come on," the Doctor said, worry creeping into his voice. "Come on. Come on! Where are they?"

"_I hope they are."_

"THERE'S NOTHING HERE."

Silence again, as both men recollected themselves, broken only by the sounds of the metacrisis' failing ship.

The voice picked up again and the Doctor began circling the console. "Your best," he seethed, "is never good enough. How can I do anything for her if you can't even – Will you quit babbling?!" he demanded in the same moment that the voice said,_ "Never mind."_

"_But it wasn't finished."_

The Doctor scoffed.

"_And she doesn't have a capsule, so go."_

The Doctor growled, wordlessly, pounding his head with the heels of his fisted hands.

"_Now, I haven't got…"_

"I'll tell you what you haven't got!"

"_I haven't got any time."_

"Brains!" he corrected, tapping his forehead, significantly, and glaring at the button. It took him a full moment to realize he'd reached the end of the message. "What? That's it? That's it? Is that all there is?" He pushed the button again and the message replayed.

He flew into motion, a blur around the console, and pieces of the message haunted the control room as he worked on it. He scanned the whole thing with the ship's systems and the sonic and three other devices he still had lying around from before. He ran it through again and again and he listened to it backwards and forwards and inside out.

None of it worked. He tapped the sonic against his temple, his eyes screwed tight in thought. No good. The Doctor stared into the still-black monitor, with only a reflection of himself to look at, and he glowered. Little comfort, that. "Look at you. You look awful," he said, heavily. He batted the screen away.

He turned around and sat back against the dashboard, tucking his sonic back into his jacket pocket. He jerked his hand away as if he'd been shocked. He pressed his jacket closed and giggled into the empty space in front of him. "No. Really?" He pulled the jacket lapel again, peeking at his pocket and, just once more, pressed a hand over where the pocket was, holding it close, and closed. "Really? No, but it's a silly idea.

"Except that it's not!" he cried, wringing his hands together. He hoisted himself up again, moving around to find the button. "Oh, that might be good. Slightly psychic paper and a slightly Time Lord mind! That's not silly at all," he said, reaching inside his jacket pocket. He froze, staring at nothing in particular. He swallowed, hard, and drew the psychic paper out of his coat pocket. "Why not?" he asked it, flipping it open and closed. He shrugged. He cleared his throat. "We've gotten far stranger messages from less likely sources," he went on with false bravado.

He shot his hand out to hit the button and ran over to the monitor. He pressed the paper flat against the screen and kept it there, holding quite still as the message played through again. When it was over, the Doctor slid the wallet down into his hands.

He opened it to check, and snapped it closed again with a strangled sound that lodged in his throat. He swallowed, hard, and looked up into the screen and this time, "Oh-ho," this time, the fragile smile he saw in his reflection did offer some hope.

"Geronimo."

* * *

Author's note:

Thank you for the lovely reviews!

Let me know if you catch anything off, or if you love it, or just anything. It was SO nice to hear from you, readers.

I hope you like this one. I was pitching fits over it. I had a few helpers that worked very hard to get this out to you! (Thanks for that!)

Remember: the full message is at the bottom of the first chapter, if you want it without 11 interrupting! I know I needed it - he kept distracting me.

I own nothing of Doctor Who.

Thanks!


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